̶  ix. IT'S WHEN BREATHING HURTS THE MOST.

i wish i remembered the moment my innocence was stolen from me. like a thief who got away, the world draped it's reality over my shoulders and ever since, i haven't been able to brush it off. the weight of it all compresses itself on to my chest, my rib cage sore, my lungs barely filled with the oxygen they need. i want to scream, but i stay silent. in the corner of my bedroom, my shadow mocks me, my anxiety bellowing as i try to leave the sheets i had been wrapped in for days.

march fourth, two thousand and fourteen, i stared at an image that wasn't me. the reflection bounced off a villain not even she could find hope within. it was two twenty-one in the morning. the purple under her eyes turned a violent blue if she stared long enough, she couldn't help but blur her vision as she began to weep one last time.

that day, a girl named april was supposed to perish. she wanted it all to end so badly, a small thirteen year old who still had the future to see almost swallowed a bottle of what she labeled hope. she was so tired, she was ready to spend an eternity asleep in a wooden, bolted shut coffin.

but she lived, for some odd reason she sits here typing this now.
yet most nights, she wishes she wasn't.